“Currently, the tech company (Facebook) disclosures only reveal an imprecise summary: 12,000 to 12,999 user accounts requested by FISA content requests, for example, during July to December 2012. That number, by the way, represents the peak in a spike of affected accounts at Google. Other companies saw a similar rise in FISA requests during the same period. “

“American Civil Liberties Union attorney Alex Abdo acknowledged the reports were helpful, but that “they’re not nearly enough” for the public to evaluate the breadth and impact of government surveillance. “The limited information that can be gleaned from the reports suggests that the government is using its spying powers extremely broadly, likely infringing on the privacy rights of many innocent Americans. The administration should grant the companies’ requests to release more detailed reports, and Congress should require greater transparency and accountability when it comes to NSA surveillance,” Abdo said.

Across the board, all the charts show that NSA requests for data have not only increased over time, but that they spiked in requested information around a year ago.”

“According to recent statistics, the FISA court has issued 33,942 warrants since the court began operating in 1979. It has denied the government’s request only 11 times. In other words, the government’s requests in this court are granted approximately 99.997 percent of the time and denied 0.003 percent of the time.”

“The secret FISA court system constitutes a menace of major proportions to the American and world public. Its trajectory further demonstrates the impossibility of imposing any reforms on the American military-intelligence complex.

Terrified of the possible emergence of mass opposition to its policies of plunder, war, and austerity, the capitalist class is deliberately building a police state. This regime cannot be reformed. It can be abolished and democratic rights secured only through the independent political intervention of the working class.”

“From 2000 to 2012, we find that the FISA court denied 12 applications out of 21,914, and modified another 2% or 498 (note that in 2002, the FISA modifications were later overturned on appeal) applications. We also see that the government withdrew a total of 26 applications.

What is exceedingly clear from these numbers is that, in the vast majority of cases, FISA approves physical search and electronic surveillance applications with no changes. Looking at these numbers, it’s hard not to see the courts as something of a “rubber stamp.””

“Thanks to provisions in 2005’s USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act, the Justice Department also began to include information about requests for information about US citizens in the annual FISA Reports. These are requests made by the FBI to National Security Letter authorities. According to the Electronic Privacy Information Center, these are applications for an extraordinary search procedure which gives the FBI the power to compel the disclosure of customer records held by banks, telephone companies, Internet Service Providers, and others. These entities are prohibited, or “gagged,” from telling anyone about their receipt of the NSL, which makes oversight difficult. [source]”

“Top secret documents submitted to the court that oversees surveillance by US intelligence agencies show the judges have signed off on broad orders which allow the NSA to make use of information “inadvertently” collected from domestic US communications without a warrant.

The Guardian is publishing in full two documents submitted to the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (known as the Fisa court), signed by Attorney General Eric Holder and stamped 29 July 2009. They detail the procedures the NSA is required to follow to target “non-US persons” under its foreign intelligence powers and what the agency does to minimize data collected on US citizens and residents in the course of that surveillance.

The documents show that even under authorities governing the collection of foreign intelligence from foreign targets, US communications can still be collected, retained and used.

The procedures cover only part of the NSA’s surveillance of domestic US communications. The bulk collection of domestic call records, as first revealed by the Guardian earlier this month, takes place under rolling court orders issued on the basis of a legal interpretation of a different authority, section 215 of the Patriot Act.”

Thank you so much. We have ALL contacted Amnesty International, which takes funding from powerful corporations and will NOT address this abuse. This is Surveillance Abuse, and Domestic Torture. ALL large human rights organizations are “standing down” and letting this carnage happen, and continue.

Hello.
I am currently being wrongfully surveillanced. A rather long story. Suffice to say I had been living in West Hollywood, CA. for 25 years. Never had a problem there, up until the last 5 years or so, when a lot of riff-raff were moving in, and created trouble. As I am an Indian/Muslim, I was scrutinized by not “engaging” with them, as I feel I didn’t have to prove my worth. They berated me, I berated them back, and complained to the landlord also. Matters got worse as they bullied me out of my residence for 25 years. I moved, Later, they stalked me at my new place, and formed a witch-hunt, with lies, character assassination, defamation, and slander. Started a paper trail with the Sheriff. Couple of my bullies/stalkers have a direct connection with the US Army- one of them being a father of the culprit. So I have been experimented on since 2012, and on-going. My ears are clogged up; they are messing with my head, vibrations in the head of high velocity, microwave hearing, voices to “control” into their totalitarianism. (primarily because I fought them, and then concocted that I am a “threat” to pad up their revenge); manipulating the genitals and the urinary tract; manipulating the bowels to cause desentry, to de-hydrate; burns and scratches all over. Currently, I am on Disability because of no hearing.
Please email me for any suggestions that you may have to offer, since I can’t hear on the phone! Many thanks.mohibjivan@yahoo.com